Europe Tour 2006

We just returned from a whirlwind tour of Europe, spending 3 weeks in 4 countries. If you haven’t been, Europe is rich in history and art; which is like eating honey…… after several bites, you begin to get a little nauseous! Not all of us can stand a full plate of Art, historic buildings, Renaissance Paintings, naked statues of men that stand in Galleries stretching from the tip of Italy to the top of Mars, more paintings and still more paintings. For those of you who CAN, I applaud you! Being brought up in Backwoods, Arkansas, we only learned the 3 R’s of reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. In Arkansas, “refined” education meant a field trip to Paris, Arkansas. But in Europe, the 3 R’s means Renaissance, Renaissance, and still more Renaissance paintings.

All in all, the trip was very good! It was a wonderful experience for my Bride and I. We had been planning this excursion since 1971 and we felt like it was high time to go! My woman planned the trip……no weenie tour groups for us! We wanted a custom made trip, fit for a tight budget! She planned and planned for days and weeks; poured over books and web sites with experts and geeks until, finally, the day came to go.

We had purchased Eurail Passes, airline tickets, hotel accommodations and special light weight, wrinkle free, quick dry, mix and match outfits that fit into a 20 pound carry on suitcase so we could travel light and travel fast. We hit the ground running and remained that way for nearly 3 weeks.

We took Jet Blue from Portland to New York, then American into Rome. Three days in Rome in a Villa Bed & Breakfast in a realtime Italian neighborhood was perfect. We learned how to secure bus passes and travel the streets with the natives on Trolleys & Busses without getting lost very much.

We visited the Coliseum and surrounding Roman ruins, that are still being excavated to this day, The Vatican, Museums, Monuments, churches of all sizes, shapes and awesomeness. We saw statues and fountains; statues IN fountains; fountains spurting from statues; paintings of all sizes, shapes, kinds…..whatever the imagination could possibly conceive….we saw it! We wondered what it was that captivated the Roman Artists to paint and sculpt male anatomy on nearly every piece of art we saw. Statues by the hundreds, standing there in broad daylight with their “thingies” showing. Well, not EVERYWHERE……..apparently when the Nuns took over some of the big churches a few centuries ago, they went around knocking off the private parts of many of the statues’ anatomy. That was funny.

We left Rome early on Sunday morning and headed for Florence to attend a church of Christ. Unfortunately, train connections blew our schedule and we arrived much too late. We found our hotel okay and proceeded to see the sights of Florence after checking in early. We visited such places as the naked statue of David and several of his naked buddies. We went into several big churches were the Catholics and the Russians had spent serious dough building. They were awesome to see. No expense was spared in the construction. We saw many more paintings, more naked statues and still more paintings. We spent a little time shopping and looking at things we couldn’t possibly bring back home even if we bought it!

From Florence the next day, we took our Train to Venice. There are no “pot holes” in the streets of Venice! Venice is a beautiful, old city, full of age-old buildings, churches, art and naked statues. We took a boat ride along the canals and took in the charm of this ancient city. We did the Gondola thing and had our boatman sing to us!

Evening came and we caught the last train to Munich, Germany…..as well as several FIFA Soccer Fans! We had First Class accommodations throughout our Europe trip, however, it would have been nice if we had some “sleeper accommodations”. So we sat up in our seats and tried to sleep during the 7 hour trip to Munich.

We arrived early in the morning….on Tuesday, I believe. We took in some of the sights and sampled food and coffee for a few hours before boarding our train, headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Garmisch was always my favorite place to go when I was stationed in Darmstadt, Germany during my military days.

We had our own Apartment, about 1200 square feet of space in the heart of the city. It was wonderful! Garmisch is situated in the valley at the foot of Germany’s highest mountain in the Alps, a beautiful, lush green with cold streams of melted snow, beautifully decorated buildings with planter boxes filled with flowers of all kinds and that Bavarian atmosphere you always imagine. The restaurants were always serving the best food in Europe, the people were helpful and friendly and the view of the Alps was amazing to see. The church bells would ring on every quarter-hour and seemed to ring forever at noontime! They were very loud, but very pleasant to listen to.

We spent 3 days in Garmisch enjoying the Bavarian scenery and taking in every atmosphere we could. In the evening, a nearby farmer drove his golden dairy cows right down the main street; each one wearing bells that rang sharply as they walked clippity clop down the asphalt street, driven by caretakers on bicycles. The automobiles would pull over and allow the cattle to pass by before proceeding.

We took a cable car to the top of Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze, at 2,950 meters high. It was beautiful at the top. Snow was still on the restaurant structure, yet it was a warm, sunny day. That was where I first went snow skiing. It was 1968.

I hated to leave Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but our time was up and we needed to move on.

I’ll write more about the trip later…..